A.S.Buxton (1922/23)

Main Variant

Transcription
3

PLOUGH MONDAY.

By MR. A. S. BUXTON.

A feature of the annual meeting of
the members of the Old Mansfield
Society, held in the Old Meeting House
Bchoolroom on Monday night, was the
revival of a custom that obtained years
ago on Plough Monday. Many old re-
sidents will remember how on the first
Monday after Twelfth Night, men dis-
guised, in many caaes wearing masks,
used to parade from house to house
and perform a short play for
which they expected payment when the
hat was passed round. The Deputy-
Mayor having trained a number of
boys to perform one of theae old plays,
it was given on Monday evening in the
presence of a large company. Mr. A. S.
Buxton read a short paper on the sub-
ject as follows:-

In mediaeval times the plays on the
first Monday after Twelfth night bore
reference to the resumption of labour
after the Christmas holidays. Then the
ploughmen used to keep lights burning
in front of the shrines of various saints
in the churches in order to obtain a
blessing on their work, and the lights
were known as "Plough lights."

On Plough Monday the men went
round from house to house performing
a play and collecting money to defray
the expenses of these lights, and this
continued until the Reformation, which
movement, although it extinguished the
lights, failed to put down the perform-
ances. These still continued, but, as
the necessity for gathering "Plough
money" no longer existed, the men col-
lected for themselves, and, I am afraid,
spent the money at the public-houses.
Everybody was expected to give, and a
plough was carried round in the pro-
cession which was used to plough up the
pavements in front of the houses of non-
contributors.

Many old Mandold people can re-
member their fathers and mothers tel-
ling of such doings, and carrying a

plough round was kept up here until
nearly the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury, when the men gradually ceased to
go round, and the performances fell into
the hands of the boys. The Mansfield
version of the play, as we shall see it,
is that performed by the boys regularly
until some thirty years ago, when even
the boys allowed it to slowly die out.
The editor of eight miracle plays, refer-
ring to an old Cornish Christmaa play,
states that such performances were
given in a slightly varying form all over
England within living memory, and that
they show us the last state of the tradi-
tional mystery and Old English folk
play, as it became when it was left to
the village wits and playwrights to pro-
duce without any co-operation from the
trained eye and hand of a parson or
learned clerk.

Looking at the Mansfield play we find
this description to be true, for start-
ing with a high sounding prologue and
following dialogue, it quickly descends
to local wit. Its similarity to tba Corn-
ish play alluded to is striking as the fol-
lowing examples show. Taking the pro-
logue in the Mansfield version, the first
four lines are are:

  I open the- doors, I enter in,
  I seek all favour for to win;
  Whether I stand or whether I fall
  I do my duty to please you all.

The Cornish is:

  Open your doors and let me in,
  I hope your favours I shall win;
  Whether I rise or whether I fall,
  I'll do my best to please you all.

You will notice that in our play they
do not request the people to open their
doors but assume their entry aa a right,
a survival of the times when contribu-
tions were levied as by law.

The first speech of St. George, too, is
also nearly identical with the Cornish,




  4

as is the whole of the doctor's perform-
ance. When this latter character in our
yersion is describing his travela he says
he has been to Itty Pitty, which seems
nonesense, but Miss Manners went over
to Selston and took down their words,
and from this it seems that originally
it was Italy and Sicily. One line of the
Mansfield prologue is:

  "A room, a room, a gallant room, a
room to let us in,"

And the Selston rendering is:

  "A rome, a rome, a gathermg rome,"
etc.

From this it would eeem we have sub-
stituted the word gallant for gathering,
and Selston have got the room into
rome. The latter possibly happened
through some former Selston actor pro-
nouncing room as rome.

These instances show how easily the
words got changed in those plays which
were learnt by ear, when no written
copy existed to serve as a guide.

After the doctor cures Slasher, Beelze-
bub appears.

The Devil was frequently found, in
one form or another, in these old plays,
and so was the Vice. When the former
appears as the Devil, his duty frequently
is to cary off the Vice at the end. Thus
our old friend Punch, who playa the
Vice, is, after a brief and merry career,
eventually taken off by his Satanic
Majesty. When, as in the Mansfield
play, the Devil appears as Beelzebub, he
is a comic character armed with a club,
and plays the Vice himself.

No doubt this part was once much
more important than it is now, and he
would carry out the old dramatists' in-
tructiona to lay about him lustily with
a great pole, and tumble the characters
one over the other with great noise
and riot for "dysports sake."

You will notice that Beelzebub carries
a club, and also the attempt to make
him a comic character.

Another point of similarity about all
these old plays is the method frequently
adopted to bring on the charcaters.

If we were to judge by this, it would
seem that mediaeval audiences were in-
credulous in the extreme, for the actor,
having vaunted his deeds, seems sud-
denly to realize that he ia not believed,
and says "If you do not believe the
words I say, step in - and clear the
way," thus calling for a backer.

If mediaeval audiences were incredul-
ous mediaeval backers were poor in the
extreme, for they let their man down
badly. Instead of saying - as in the
"Mikado" -


  And in this case
  It took place
  Exactly as he says!

they no sooner take the stage than,
abandoning their man entirely, they be-
gin to tell the audience all about them-
selves. You will notice this, and now I
am sure you are anxious for Councillor
Beazley's actors to appear, so -

  If you don't believe the words I aay,
  Step in bold plough bullocka,
  Clear the way.

A MANSFIELD DANCE.

Next, under the direction of Mrs,
Buxton, a number of girls from the
Girls' Club gave a couple of dances, one
being a Mansfield country danoe.

Mr. Buxton, in introdueing the sub-
ject, said:

The next item is one that has a great
interest for us, being a Mansfield coun-
try dance. Few towns in England can
boast of a dance of their own, but as we
have one founded on an old Mansfield
ballad, we can claim this distinction.
These old country dances were founded
on ballads and songs, which was a dis
trict convenience, for, if no musicians
were available, the people could always
get up a dance by singng the ballad as
they danced, and thus provide their
own music.

All know of the ballad of "The King
and Miller of Mansfield," and we are
apt to think this is the only known of
Mansfield, but this it not the case, as
in the 17th century, the town was
known far and wide in England by
another.

About the year 1675 a traveller named
Thomas Baskerville came to Mansfield •
and a letter discribing his journey is in
existenoe.

This is what he says:

"Mansfield, a town made famous
amongst country people by meana of
that ballad or song called the 'Gelding
of the Devil,' has one fair church it it,
and little more can be said of it.

The music to this ballad is publiahed
in No.7 of Cecil Sharp's Country Dance
Tunes, and the figure of the dance itself
in Part 4 of his Country Dance Book.

Cecil Sharp does not know the words
of the ballad, and was unaware of its
Mansfield origin, until this Baskerville
letter was pointed out to him, but says
that undoubtedly the dance was
founded on this ballad. As you will find,
the music is lively, and the danoe pretty
and simple, being a round for six of a
now progressive order, belonging to the
class of those from which our modern
quadrilles and lancers originated.